New York State of Mind

While studying for the bar I attended a conference in Las Vegas. Wide open roads, large sidewalks, and not just on the Strip. Why couldn’t New York, London, Jerusalem or Rome be like that? And what does that mean for us?

You can’t remake NYC. I might love a Cross Bronx with twice the number of lanes, but we’d need to destroy hundreds of buildings and displace tens of thousands of people, something Vegas didn’t have to worry about. Because so much is baked in, New York will never have the wide open character of a newer city, instead we make changes inch by inch. A pedestrian mall here, a new bridge there, change is slow but the underlying character remains.

We get caught up in our assumptions. We construct two lane roads and build structures in our mind which we’re afraid to tear down. Consequently we don’t re-examine assumptions, opinions become entrenched, complacency rules the day. We stick with the old air conditioner because it never enters our mind to buy a new one which is better and saves more money. We stick with an old computer because our two lane mind doesn’t want to go onto a highway. We assume others use that same road and travel in the same direction.

Tear down the mental structures, get rid of the Cross Bronx in your head and build new roads.